The latest edition of OA 19th-c. Periodicals features such new crowdpleasers as The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, Harmsworth Magazine, the Theosophical Review, The Money Market Review, and The Child's Own Magazine. #victorian www.victorianresearch.org/openaccesspe...
Patrick Leary
Patrick Leary
@patrickleary.bsky.social
Historian, esp. 19c press, talk, book history. Author “Googling the Victorians,” “Punch Brotherhood,” etc. Co-founder SHARP, mgr VICTORIA. Fond of Old Time Radio, 60s Top 40, tennis, London. Liberal Texan in self-imposed Midwest exile. FRHistS
2.4K followers1.6K following941 posts
Not to forget The Law Review, including this from November 1851: babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=md...
What a great idea this was for JVC’s 30th birthday: a thoughtful collection of 30 representative articles from this splendid journal, each one a gem, and each one open access! #victorian #19th-c.
2026 marks the 30th birthday of @jofvictculture.bsky.social!! 🎂 Reflecting this milestone & working with previous editors, we 5 Co-Editors have put together a Virtual Special Issue of the 30 articles felt to best represent the journal's lifetime📄 🌟https://academic.oup.com/jvc/pages/30-for-30th
Pioneering advance in our understanding of cultural change across the 19th c.
Delighted to announce this new JVC article, written in conjuction with @helenkingstone.bsky.social @pieterfrancois.bsky.social and @emilyjlm.bsky.social. First fruits of our collaborative generational analysis of periodicals. With graphs and even a reworked version of a Lexis diagram.
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Just a friendly reminder that Curran Fellowship applications are due next week on 15 October! Open to all researchers, Curran awards offer up to $6,000 USD to support #19thC periodical research that makes use of print and archival sources. Application guidance here: rs4vp.org/awards/curra...
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New ECR opportunity, courtesy of JVC and BAVS. Please spread the word as widely as you can!
NEW: JVC–BAVS Early Career Mentorship Scheme; a collaboration between the Journal of Victorian Culture (JVC) & British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) to support PhDs & early career scholars in developing their first peer-reviewed journal article. More here: jvc.oup.com/2026/09/28/j...
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@bavs-uk.bsky.social Calling all BAVS members! This year's AGM is tomorrow (23rd Sept) at 1.30pm BST. You'll have received a meeting link via the BAVS Newsletter email. If you can, please do come along. As well as the formal business, there is an Open Forum to discuss future activities.
A HathiTrust collection where I've stashed some of my favorite memoirs, etc., re: 19th-c. British authorship and publishing. Recently expanded, but suggested additions are always welcome. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/mb?a=lis... #victorian #19th-c. #bookhistory
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Please spread the word to graduate students about this professional development workshop on Friday. We (the program organizers for this past year's RSVP conference) will share advice on "How to Conference Effectively." rs4vp.org/how-to-confe...
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Excited that my first monograph, The Politics of Reading at the British Subscription Library, has been published by @degruyterbrill.bsky.social. The book examines the political, social and intellectual culture of late 18thC Britain through books and reading habits. brill.com/display/titl...
Peter Coviello in The Defector, courtesy of Rusty Foster: defector.com/dolly-joseph...
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Bill Bell has such a lovely blog post up about "reading in retirement". I vibrated in agreement with everything he says about the many meanings one's books hold, and how they come to represent a kind of "accidental autobiography": crusoesbooks.wordpress.com/2026/08/25/r... #bookhistory
We fans of 1940s and 50s radio shows are mourning the death a week ago of astonishingly versatile actress Peggy Webber, just shy of her 101st birthday. Webber was ubiquitous on radio, though often uncredited. @thr.com ran an informative profile here: www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
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OUT NOW | 'The Diaries of Anthony Hewitson, Provincial Journalist, Vol 2: 1891–1912' ed by Andrew Hobbs The 2nd vol of Anthony Hewitson's diaries offers rare insight into the career of a 19th century journalist Read freely online or buy a copy: buff.ly/hQ88jnZ #OpenAccess #journalism #19thCentury
Congratulations, Helena -- what good news for us all!
The Americanisation of W. T. Stead is out now! So delighted to get my author copies, huge thanks to @edinburghup.bsky.social. We’ve a 30% launch discount, if you’re a librarian/ in collection development, pls consider recommending for your library. #VictorianStudies #PeriodicalStudies #BookHistory
If you work on the 19th-c press and are looking at bills for travel, repro fees, etc., applying for a Curran Fellowship should be a no-brainer. Not a lot of hoops to jump through, and the folks making the decisions are researchers just like you. These are open to anybody, of any age, anywhere. #C19
📢 It's Curran Fellowship time! These awards support research on #19thC periodicals as objects of study in their own right. Multiple awards of up to $6,000 (USD) are given each year, thanks to the generosity and enduring legacy of Eileen Curran. Apps due 15 Oct. Full guidelines here: buff.ly/Vw4Q3Tr
I'm sorry to report that John North has died. John was a towering figure in C19 studies whose Waterloo Directory offers a bibliographical map to over 70,000 press titles. When in 2018 he celebrated 50 years of teaching the University of Waterloo posted this interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GRB...
Thinking about the recent thread from Sarah ( @sarahebull.bsky.social ) about the history of Victorian Studies reminded me of this run of the Victorian News Letter, started in the 50s as a bulletin of the new “Section X” of the MLA. Some fascinating stuff there kb.osu.edu/collections/...
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📘From our latest issue! Keir Waddington @keirwaddington.bsky.social (Cardiff University) on 'Living with Drought in the Long Nineteenth Century' #Water #Environment #Climate #Rural #Weather 👉Read open access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
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The Curran Index, named after my old friend Eileen Curran, is the world's only ongoing research project devoted to identifying the authors of anonymous articles, stories, and poems in the 19th-c. press. Please check it out and let us know what you think. Your help will be invaluable. #victorian
Still plugging the short survey on the future of the Curran Index. Interestingly, have had almost as many retweets of my original post as there have been actual completions of the survey. Closes on the 10th, so if your work touches at all on nineteenth century periodicals please have your say!
Indeed you all are. And, gentle Bluesky readers, check out the news projected behind this team: a British Newspaper Archive discount for RSVP members that saves serious money on that subscription. Negotiated by the inexhaustible Mary. Even more reason for all C19 scholars to join @rs4vp.org!
With the wonderful Mary and Priti ahead of the RSVP AGM. What a team! #RSVP2026
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Thrilled to see Alex Bubb's work on book collecting! I remember him getting into it and me telling him to start a bibliographic database. His website has a great acronym: *Archive of Victorian Translations from Asia and their Readerships (AVaTAR): Asian Literature in the Victorian World* #BAVS2026
Who can forget this scene from The Hound of the Baskervilles? I can, and did. With thanks to the amazing @arkhamlibrarian.bsky.social for another pulp take on a Victorian classic!
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We're running a short online survey to inform development of the Curran Index. If you're interested in Victorian periodicals, whether or not you've used the Curran recently, please complete the survey! Survey closes 10th August. Please retweet. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
So happy to be in Dublin for this year’s @rs4vp.org meeting. Here posing with Sir Isaac amid the empty shelving of the soon to be renovated Old Library…and searching in vain for someone to explain to me why the letter J is missing from all the shelves. #RSVP2026
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VPR 58.4 is hot off the press! It's great reading-whether you're gearing up for #RSVP26 in Dublin this week or just following the conference on our socials. muse.jhu.edu/issue/57248 @rs4vp.org
Another thoughtful essay from book historian Bill Bell: crusoesbooks.wordpress.com/2026/07/15/s... #bookhistory
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Please join the network and our friends on the Punch's Pocket Book Archive team for our upcoming symposium "Global circulations – annuals and pocket books on the move", 26–27 November 2026, U of Caen Normandy. Deadline for proposals = 31 August 2026 caesar-project.unicaen.fr/event/call-f...
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A complete digital version of The Naturalist’s Library (1833-43), William Jardine’s 40-volume book series on natural history, including restored versions of each of the 1300+ illustrations in the library. Wow. [kottke.org]
I find this so deeply moving— not only that we can now read writings that haven’t been read in two millennia, but that this miraculous accomplishment is owing to an unshakable commitment to public, cooperative scholarship.
In 79 AD, Mt. Vesuvius buried the Roman town of Herculaneum under ash. In a villa, a library of papyrus scrolls was buried. For 2,000 years they’ve been unreadable. Researchers with the Vesuvius Challenge have read an entire scroll without opening it. buff.ly/WSjPmXf #ShareGoodNewsToo
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We're running a short online survey to inform development of the Curran Index. If you're interested in Victorian periodicals, whether or not you've used the Curran recently, please complete the survey! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
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British Library's EThOS platform for its online database of 650,000 doctoral theses back online. Hooray!
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There’s a permanent modern British history post going at Manchester 🎉Come and join a great department and please share with anyone who might be interested. (Don’t let the short deadline put you off). #skystorians 🗃️
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These photos took me back to my own debate days, when all was legal pads and index cards and every year's debate topic was ultimately about race, poverty, or Vietnam: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
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How @camunicampop.bsky.social researchers are turning static snapshots of Victorian Britain into dynamic life histories. The team are linking over 200 million census records, revealing how people moved, worked and lived in ways never before possible. 🔎 Read on 👉 www.hist.cam.ac.uk/news/tracing...
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The latest installment of our three-part interview with Linda Hughes is now live! Continuing on from their previous conversation about "the past" foundations of periodical poetry research, Linda and Gillian Walters discuss the "present" state of the field. Read on here: rs4vp.org/periodical-p...
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A 2 year restoration project has been completed on a 6.5 metre stained glass window at Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire designed by Pre-Raphaelite artists, William Morris & Edward Burne-Jones. 👇 BBC News - Salisbury Cathedral's stained glass window restored - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Some slightly discomfiting thoughts about a book much loved by myself and many others: Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road, whose anniversary will be celebrated at Foyle's in London next month. Thanks to @akennedysmith.bsky.social and her wonderful blog. akennedysmith.substack.com/p/april-lett...
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This is another routine reminder that our journal @advancesjournal.bsky.social is actively seeking proposals for themed issues. Do get in touch with me directly if you are interested in submitting a proposal. Journal details 👇 www.tandfonline.com/journals/ran...
Great stuff here from a splendid historian of the 19th-c press. Bonus: during the discussion period he talks about what an utterly miserable experience it is to work in the archives of the London Times! But worth it. #victorian #bookhistory
For those who may have had to miss it Friday, the recording of our wonderful talk by Graham Law on "Commissioned Letters to The Times" is now live on our YouTube channel! youtu.be/4KKgILJqiE0
Mudie's Select Circulating Library lay at the heart of the Victorian publishing system. Karen Wade's site, now at a new URL, makes it possible to explore the library's catalogues as never before, with an index of 22,000 novels by 6000 authors. curatr.ucd.ie/mudies/ #victorian #bookhistory
For more on the status of open access online collections of Victorian letters see www.victorianresearch.org/other.html#l...